Tax exempt no longer

Roughly 2,000 nonprofit organizations in the Tampa Bay area that lost tax exempt status last week for failing to file proper reports. Most are small and haven’t filed paperwork because they no longer operate. Or maybe they have changed names or have merged with a parent organization that is still exempt. In the past, organizations that didn’t file reports were never purged, so they remained on IRS rolls as tax exempt even if they had long since ceased to exist.

Different organizations can have very similar names and the IRS spreadsheet left only so much space for an organization’s name, so some names are truncated. For example "Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla" appears on list, but that is deceptive. The organization that was actually purged appears to be the Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla Scholarship Foundation Inc., but the full name did not fit on the spreadsheet. Officials at the scholarship foundation could not be reached for comment.

Even if an organization you care about appears on this list, they can reapply for tax exempt status for a $100 fee. Any donations made to these organizations before Wednesday are still tax deductible. For more information, please contact the organization itself.